Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A study of the visual arts from the twentieth century to the present, with attention to the artists, artworks, movements, and discourses that re-defined the functions and meanings of art. The debates of modernism, postmodernity, postcolonialism, feminism, and the avant-garde will be systematically explored. Students with credit for FPA 168 may not take this course for further credit. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

A critical survey of visual art and culture from 1900 to the present. By analyzing the different streams of the early avant-garde and the rise of global art history, this course will address the social, political, and philosophical questions raised by modernism, postmodernism and postcolonial theory and their influence on art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Movements and art forms to be covered include Soviet Constructivism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Land art, Performance, installation, new media and environmental art.

The major part of the course consists of weekly lectures. They are followed by weekly workshops in which students work in smaller groups to work on class exercises and review weekly readings, lecture material, and assignments.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Through assignments and exams, students will be expected to: identify and classify works of art (artists’ names, dates, movements); understand and apply art historical terminology; analyse and develop arguments about the formal, material, cultural, philosophical, historical and political significance of important works of art from this period; evaluate and engage critically with various arguments made by historians and critics; and develop original arguments about artworks. No extensions will be granted on assignments. Late papers will be penalized one grade per day unless an extension has been requested in writing and granted.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING: